The present invention relates to the art of fluid phase separation, and, more in particular, to a centrifugal, pitot separator that separates solids and liquids and produces a fluid with acceptably low solids content to be used elsewhere and to be used for concentrating the solids so that solids and a liquid carrier discharge at an acceptably low flow rate.
It is not uncommon for a fluid to be contaminated with solid materials and for this reason to be unusable. Solids can cause abrasion damage to seals, bearings, blades and the like of machinery with which the fluid is used, either as a power fluid or as a fluid undergoing an increase in head.
There are many ways of separating solids from a fluid. One way is by centrifugal cleaners. Pitot cleaners are a type of centrifugal cleaner. A pitot cleaner has a hollow rotor driven by a motor. The rotor rotates within a casing or housing. A stationary pitot tube at a predetermined radial zone within the rotor intercepts fluid and draws the fluid out of the rotor. This cleansed fluid may then become a process fluid for some activity, say, a power fluid for hydraulic machinery. Solids that are heavier than the rest of the phases of the fluid go into the casing or housing surrounding the rotor as "underflow" through nozzles in the outside of the rotor and at the maximum radius of the rotor. The solids are entrained in liquid. There the material is discharged, but the discharge can be a nuisance.
It is also known that jet pumps that employ a pressurized fluid to aspirate another fluid are good at handling abrasive streams. A jet pump and pitot pump combination is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,817,659.
It is also known that cyclone separators effectively remove solids from a stream by reducing the kinetic energy of the stream and the solids, resulting in the solids coming out of suspension.
Especially in particularly dirty streams a problem of disposal of the underflow from a separator presents itself. The dirty effluent includes a carrier liquid and the quantity of the effluent creates the problem. In some locations it becomes difficult to conveniently store and dispose of the waste effluent.
It would be desirable to provide a means for concentrating the solids in order to reduce the quantity of waste resulting from separation. At the same time, it would be desirable to provide a cleansed stream with at least some of the head it had before cleaning.